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I

..thought

……………we

………………….were

…………………………..FRIENDS!

But apparently not…

You unleashed your psychotic, blood-frenzied zoo. I was caught unprepared. My pants were pulled down by a relentless onslaught of axe-wielding penguins and pandas. They took it in turns to spank my search engine optimized bottom. They didn’t stop when I cried out. Our friendship died that day.

But to understand this sorry story of our fractured friendship requires a brief rewind to happier times. Let me remind you of what we had…

Life before you

I never really liked libraries much. It took a long time to find what I wanted, and quite often the book I needed was already out on loan. The books were always dusty, and I’m allergic to dust. I never really liked libraries.

I never really liked the Encyclopedia Britannica collection at home either. It was 10 years out of date, and the pictures weren’t glossy. Book number 14 had pages 105-114 stuck together by a coffee spillage. I used to like those pages.

Then one day, I got a commodore 64. It didn’t do much, but it was more fun than trying to work out what was on line 15 of page 112 in book 14 in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Except, of course, for the bit where I had to wait 30 minutes for the tape to load a game.

Skip forward many years …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. later and the commodore 64 is like a horse and cart to a Ferrari towing a caravan. I have a computer that is faster than a sloth on ketamine, and along you came, google.

No more sneezing in musty libraries

Whenever I was unsure, lost, dumbfounded, confused or ignorant, you were there to pick up the pieces.

Do you remember that time when I didn’t know how to change a plug, and was too embarrassed to ask someone? You didn’t laugh…

Remember the time when I chewed my pen so hard, the ink exploded in my mouth, and I was scared I’d given myself a tongue tattoo? You told me everything would be ok, and it was.

When I was lonely

When I was all alone and sad, I asked you about internet dating one day. After months of tantalizing exchanges, I went to Scotland at Christmas to meet the girl of my dreams. You even told me how to get there. It turned out she wasn’t the girl of my dreams at all, but Scotland was nice.

You cured me of so much

When I was shaving the wrong way round, and I got horrible, horrible in-growing hairs. You told me to grow my beard again and stop shaving backwards.

When I had a nasty case of athlete’s foot, you prescribed me the best cream – even if it did turn out to be for thrush really.

When I was too shy to ask out girls, you told me to go to the supermarket on a Friday night and look out for the ones buying a single small pizza.

When that girl in the supermarket left me the next day, you told me about Kegels…

Oh how we laughed

When I was bored, down in the dumps or just felt like a good old chuckle, you were there. Sometimes I thought even you were laughing too. But it turned out to be the dishwasher.

There was that night when you showed me the funniest video site and I peed myself laughing. Then, faithful as you were, you told me that it was ok and I shouldn’t be embarrassed as long as nobody noticed.

How could you?

But then you deserted me…

…………………………………..Why?

……….are you there?……………….google?

…………………………………………………….Why?

Was it because I started blogging? Was it when I asked you a small favor – to bump me up the rankings? All your other friends were doing it. Why shouldn’t I? After all, you asked me not to hang out with Bing, Yahoo, AOL and all the rest of the riff-raff. I thought we had an understanding.

Was it because I spent too much time with Adwords? Did you get jealous? Did you feel that Adwords put me up to all this search engine optimization? You got paranoid that we were talking behind your back – plotting, scheming and conspiring?

Am I just not good enough for you any more?

Maybe you just don’t like what I have to say anymore. I’m not fresh enough. I’m not unique. You’ve moved on. Do you have no sense of loyalty?

Do you not like the company I keep?

Was it because I found new friends? I made too many new acquaintances, too quickly. I thought everyone used social media to make new friends.

All I did was joyfully shout to the world:

“here I am!”

……………….don’t you do the same?

……………………………………………….Google?

……………………………………………………………..don’t you do the same?

It’s not over just yet old chum

It’s not over my friend.

I’m still here.

I’m still making noise.

I have a new email address.

I have new blogs.

As you grow, so do I.

Bring it on

So bring it on. Your pandas and penguins may have given me a sore beating, put me down and caused me a sleepless night or two (on my front, by the way). But I’m up for a fight.

You started it. You made the rules. I played by them.

But I’ll finish it google. And this is how I will have my revenge…

No more capital G for you

That’s right.

No more capital G. I know how much you like your capital G. But from now on, from me, there will be no more capital G. Your crony, spell check, will fail dismally to suppress my desire to banish you to the land of lower case letters.

Perhaps if you call off your relentless siege on my other blogs, we can discuss this further.

But when the time comes, and you are willing to enter into parlay, I won’t talk to you in person.

Send the girl from the supermarket…..

……………………………………………………She was nicer than you.

One last thing

By the way, don’t you dare fill this page with your very boring chrome adverts just because I’ve mentioned your name so many times. Nobody ever clicks on them anyway. And It would only brand you with the label of having a narcissistic personality disorder – on top of what we can already establish is your primary diagnosis of Paranoia Extremis. That’s not a real mental health classification. But you knew that already didn’t you? No, I made it up just for you. Consider it ‘original content’.

Yours sincerely

Your old friend. You know who I am…

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